Cross Country Headline

For
the second consecutive week, a pair of Gator freshmen cross country runners
captured weekly honors from the Southeastern Conference, as the freshman duo of
Tenley Godfrey (Chattanooga, Tenn.) and Phil Duncan (Orlando,
Fla.) picked up SEC Women’s Freshman of the Week and SEC Men’s Runner of the
Week accolades, respectively, announced by the league office Tuesday.

The
Gators have now had four different freshman runners recognized for their
accomplishments just two weeks into the 2011 cross country season as Jimmy
Clark (St. Johns, Fla.) and Grace VanDeGrift (Durant, Fla.) were honored
as last week’s SEC Freshmen of the Week.

Following
season-opening team victories for both the men’s and women’s cross country squads
Sept. 2 at the Western Carolina Invitational, Florida cross country coach Todd
Morgan posed a challenge to each team’s younger members by taking 10 Gators
– including eight freshmen – to the South Florida Invitational Sept. 9. Duncan
and Godfrey stepped up to lead the Gators at the CLAW at USF, finishing as the
top UF freshmen at the meet. Duncan paced Florida’s men with a fourth-place
finish, while Godfrey was Florida’s second scorer, the top freshman, with a
top-10 finish in the women’s field of 142 runners.

Last
Friday’s meet marked the first 5K of the young season for UF’s women and the
first 8K race for the men’s team as Duncan helped the men claim the overall
team title (39 points), while the women posted a fourth-place team finish (107
points) out of the 13 women’s teams competing. In addition to being UF’s top finisher,
Duncan was the highest-placing freshman in the men’s field of 97 athletes and directed
the Gator men as all five competitors recorded top-11 finishes. Duncan clocked
a 26:02.74 race, good for fourth-place overall, establishing his first
collegiate mark in the event. He additionally improved from a 16th-place finish
in his first meet donning the Orange and Blue (WCU Invite) to fourth at the USF
Invite.

Godfrey
clocked an 18:19.77 in her first collegiate 5K race to place 10th in the field at
the USF Invite after registering an 11th-place showing in the women’s two-mile
race in her inaugural meet as a Gator at Western Carolina. Godfrey was one of
just four freshmen to record a top-10 finish at the Bulls’ Invitational.

The Gators will enter a two-week training period free of
competition before hitting the Mark Bostick Golf Course in Gainesville for UF’s
annual Mountain Dew Invitational Sept. 24. The men’s 8K will go off at 8 a.m.,
while the women’s 5K race will start at 8:30 a.m. For all information on the
2011 Mountain Dew Invitational, including a schedule of events and entry
information, visit the meet
information page and check out the course maps and information on UF’s Mark
Bostick Golf Course in the Mountain Dew Invite informational box on the lower
right-hand corner of www.GatorZone.com/crosscountry.
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@GZTrackField.